Daily Science Report 19 -- Thursday, 30 December 2010
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Location
After it became clear that the drill pipe would remain stuck, the decision was made to sever the drill string at a depth of about 90 mbsf with an explosive load. Since this operation leaves only a short interval of open hole for logging, and any logging operations would be very risky after the formation got further weakened by the explosion; it was decided not to attempt any downhole logging at this site. A science meeting was held at noon to discuss the situation. The science party agreed to a proposal by the co-chiefs to go to the approved Alternate Site LOUI-6A, which is located on a similar old seamount just 146 nautical miles to the SE. It is hoped that drilling at LOUI-6A will yield the minimum number of igneous flow units (that is necessary for the precise determination of the paleolatitude) from a seamount located at the old end of the Louisville chain and thereby complement the results that we got so far from the abandoned Site U1372. Since no new cores could be recovered today, the science party focused on describing the rocks retrieved from Cores U1372A-37R and -38R and started writing their site report chapters for Site U1372.
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